REFLECTING ON A HERITAGE BRAND

Managing a historic brand is less about inventing and mores about identifying, mapping and cataloguing existing codes and characteristics. Realising what is unique or distinctive and giving it greater prominence. Removing things that obscure it. Unearthing things from the past that have been filed away deep. Connecting things that previously felt unrelated.

We tend to talk about brands as if they’re singular things. But the brands that feel most complete are really collections of interconnected things. Some tangible, some intangible. Some carefully designed and others that have accumulated almost accidentally over time.

There’s the obvious stuff: the name. The logo. The typography. The colours. The photography. The packaging. The website.

Then there’s the product itself. How it looks. How it feels. The materials used. The little details someone decided were worth caring about.

There’s the language. The words a brand uses and, just as importantly, the words it doesn’t. The way it describes itself. The stories it chooses to tell. The things it assumes its audience already understands.

And then there are all the less visible parts. The history. The people behind it. The place it comes from. The reason it exists. Its rituals, references, obsessions and peculiarities. The things people say about it when the company isn’t in the room. (Some of it you can control; some is out of your hands.) All of these things contribute to what we eventually recognise as the brand.

To steer a 70 year old brand and keep it relevant, I’ve learnt the most valuable skill is editing. Knowing what to take forward and what to leave in the past. Everything we do at Ollech & Wajs is informed by history, from the watches we make, to the typefaces we work with, to the colours we choose. Warning Flag orange and Scorched Tarmac grey, for example, are references to our heritage in track racing. 1000M Deep black is a nod to the record breaking dive watch of 1964 certified water resistant to 1000 metres. Even our brand line ‘Equal To Any Challenge’ was revived from an O&W advertisement circa 1960. Just a few of the little details we decided were worth caring about.

The renovated brand mark layered over its 1968 forebear

The original 1960s tag line

THE OLLECH & WAJS LIMITED -EDITION COMPENDIUM

We marked the platinum anniversary of Ollech & Wajs with its first ever book: a visual odyssey through 70 years of watchmaking. This book is a celebration of idiosyncratic design, mechanical integrity and a legacy shaped far from the spotlight. Richly illustrated and meticulously researched, this Compendium brings together a remarkable archive of original photography, technical diagrams, data and period ephemera. Limited to 1,956 copies, in honour of the founding year of Ollech & Wajs.

GO BOLDLY INTO ANY CHALLENGE

WatchPro Salon 25 saw OW unveil the C-1000 Yellow, a throwback to the yellow dialled OW Precision Caribbean 1000 of the mid-1960s. Yellow dials became popular with the vanguards of scuba, not for aesthetic reasons, for their exceptional legibility and versatility beneath the surface. Highly visible in the shallow zones, but as the diver descends the yellow disappears fading to light grey and providing even greater contrast with matt black hands and indexes. Supported with a DPS in Oracle Time and a hands-on reviews in Fratello and Wrist Review.

RACE ACROSS THE ALPES

We recently created limited production commemorative version of the‘RallyChron' Racing Timer for the historic ‘Coupes Des Alpes’ (Alpine Rally), now in its 36th year. An ‘under the radar’ model, initially intended for teams participating in the event, including OW’s own works team, is drawing interest from farther afield. After being picked up by US media, we’ve recieved an avalanche of enquiries. We may well have to make it a limited annual production!

THE WATCH WITH THE MECHANICAL BRAIN

Another model from the OW archive reincarnated and reimagined. Before the 70s, slide rules were used for everyday arithmetic, such as calculating ratios, percentages, unit conversions, multiplication, and division. The advent of the electronic calculator, pretty much rendered them obsolete. However, a watch with a bi-directional bezel and logarithmic scales that can perform a multitude of calculations with a single rotation faster than a so called smartwatch, doesn’t require batteries and can be used underwater (up to 300m if necessary), really is smart! The all new OW P-104 Selectron makes a strong case for why slide rule watches should not be consigned to the history books just yet. See full Media kit here

FORGED IN BERGEN, REFINED IN ZURICH

The OW 8001 ’TUNDRA’ is a coalescence of industrial brutalism and the Nordic landscape. Born from a closed collaboration between OW and Norwegian Architectural Design Collective - MIR. The Bergen-based studio is known for its ground breaking CGI work which explores the relationship between architecture and the environment. Together we developed a custom, co-signed version of the 8001, exclusively for the studio and its community of artists and designers. We named it  ‘Tundra’, after the rugged landscape that inspired it. Full release here

Launched with an exclusive Square Mile partnership

Ollech & Wajs in GQ

Great to see OW mentioned in the hallowed pages of British GQ - The C-1000 Anniversary, our ‘All Units’ military utility watch and our special edition French Airforce piece all featuring in consecutive issues online and in print.

The OW C-1000 'FAGN'

Most Ollech & Wajs watches, to a lesser or greater extent, are inspired by our military heritage and informed by the research and development carried out by our special projects division - Dept.000. However, every now and again a watch created specifically for military use crosses over into our general collection. The new C-1000 FAGN is one such watch. Originally developed by OW as the official unit watch of the National Gendarmerie Air Force, in 2024 a special civilian version was made available to the public. Read the full media release here

A LESSON IN UNBRANDING

The famous OW propeller monogram was first introduced almost 70 years ago. It might surprise you to learn that despite its many iterations, the Ollech & Wajs Watch Co never signed a single watch dial with the words 'Ollech & Wajs'. All conventional marketing wisdom would suggest that a brand using an equivocal two letter acronym over its actual name, should be destined to fail. Yet  Ollech & Wajs, and it's enigmatic brandmark, have endured and become shorthand for quality and durability the world over. But why did Joseph and Albert choose not to put their full names on their watches? How did the OW logo succeed despite ignoring the most basic principles of branding? Does it really contain a hidden cipher of an owl? All these questions and more are answered in the first ever history of the OW logo

BATTLE-SCARRED BUT NOT DEFEATED

It is always an honour to have what we call an ‘Original’ back in for a service. By that we mean an OW that has seen action in Vietnam and continues to serve its original owner. Every scrape and scar on these watches serve as a reminder of all it has experienced, seen, and survived. We enjoyed giving Capt. Rhea Rippey’s chronograph a full overall and recounting the remarkable history of his beloved watch. Read it here

BREAKING RECORDS

We ended the year with an unseasonal dip in the Mediterranean alongside OW Elite Professional freediver, Siri Østvold. Siri set a new national record at the Freediving World Championships in Kalamata, Greece, (her 15th to date) - the last competitive dive of the season. ORACLE TIME captured her thoughts on the Ollech & Wajs Ocean Graph she wore on the dive in this article.

COSC ANYONE?

In 2024 we introduced a disruptive new sales model offering COSC as an optional add on across the collection. An innovative solution catering to customers wishing to own a chronometer without pushing prices beyond the reach of those who are more than content with the already outstanding OW Soprod Newton Precision movement. A custom engraved crown and numbered mainplate denotes COSC certified watches. Full Media release here

A STRAP INSPIRED BY FREEDIVING

This year, 5 years after it was introduced to the Ollech & Wajs collection, the C-1000 underwent an update: a new movement and a reconfigured dial. To mark the introduction of the C-1000 MkII, we created a monochromatic 'Freediver' RAF style nylon band. The thin white line woven through the strap symbolises the static line used by free-divers to guide their decent and accent to and from the darkness. Full release here.

Supported with DPS print advertising

A media partnership with London’s prestigious Square Mile magazine

THE LEGEND RESURFACES

To mark 60 years since the Caribbean 1000 entered dive watch folklore with the record- shattering depth rating of 1,000m, OW created a special C-1000 Anniversary Edition that reinterprets several design features of the iconic inaugural reference. The single biggest leap forward in the evolution of the dive watch was thanks partly to the revolutionary 702 mono-block case with its distinctive pointed lugs. These vestiges, affectionately referred to as ‘Vampire fangs’ by collectors, are evoked on this 2024 commemorative watch. The familiar tapered hours and minutes hands and the signature 12-hour bi- directional bezel, with 20 minute diver’s scale, are also inspired by the original. All 56 Numbered-Edition versions of the C-1000A were reserved within 24 hours of launch, making it the fastest selling non-limited production Ollech & Wajs watch of the modern era. Full release here

The C-1000 A is presented on a distinctive cadmium yellow nylon RAF style band, in reference to the yellow trim wetsuits worn by intrepid scuba divers in the 60s, including Ollech & Wajs’ test divers Alberto Novelli and Cesare Olgjai.

ANOTHER LAUNCH MISSION

The M-52B AF was launched over Christmas of 2023 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the 1954 maiden flight of the first B-52 production model. It also salutes the exceptionally rare Ollech & Wajs B-905 ‘US Airforce’ – a watch that was custom made more than half a century ago for airmen serving in Vietnam. 
The dial of the new M-52B AF bears the unmistakable silhouette of the most iconic combat aircraft of all time, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the longest-serving combat aircraft in history. After a sucessfull pre-launch teaser campaign, all 56 numbered Editions were reserved within a week and there is now a world-wide waitlist.

OUR FIRST DIGITAL WATCHES IN 68 YEARS

As a Swiss watch brand with a global customer base, but only a handful of retail partners, our challenge is how to let people fully appreciate the fine craftsmanship of our mechanical watches, when they can’t see them IRL. So we set out to create a best in class online demo tool. Using the very latest interactive digital technology we have created 18 fully interactive 360° avatars, one representing each watch and strap variation in the Ollech & Wajs collection. Accurately rendered in infinitesimal detail, bezels that rotate, removable case backs that expose gravity responsive movements, they even display the correct time and date. The new platform allows people to discover subtle design details under extreme magnification and experience our watches like never before. Click on the 360 thumbnails on each product page on the OW website, have a play and let me know what you think...

ORANGE. THE OFFICIAL COLOUR OF ADVENTURE

This fall we boldly introduced the Frogman Expedition watch band. Inspired by the intrepid Frogmen of the 1960s and their striking orange wetsuits. Immortalised in comic books and on movie posters, Frogman orange is the original color of underwater adventure. It is also associated with danger, and the more perilous the mission, the more orange the wetsuit. In fact, orange wetsuits seemed to attract trouble - its wearer invariably ended up being attacked by giant sea creatures or enemy Frogman. Subdued by decades of exposure to sunlight and saline, once vivid scuba gear takes on a vintage coral hue. This distinctive colour now features on OW's boldest rubber dive strap.